bucky
Bucky knows he can sleep till however late he wants. He desperately wishes his mind could understand that. But it's already alert by 7am, forcing him to twist and turn for half an hour until he gives in to the fact that he will not be able to go back to sleep.
Huffing in annoyance, he gets up and changes. After brushing his teeth, he puts on a shirt and jeans, not really sure if he's going somewhere. He thinks he should, get to know the city more. Get lost in it. Find his way back here to Steve and Nat's house. Just like he's trying to do with his life. He doesn't have a home anymore, not physically but metaphorically. He needs to find meaning again, a purpose, and changing his surroundings, being with people who love him, can aid him.
Hopefully it's enough.
He combs through his hair with his fingers, then slips his phone into his pocket before heading out. He moves his neck side to side and back and forth to crack the bones in duress as he ambles down the stairs. He can hear the distant voices of people he figures must be the tourists and locals hanging around the church that is a stone's throw away from there. But inside the house, it's quiet, and for a moment he thinks he's alone until he steps off the bottom step of the staircase. Turning to head into the kitchen, he spots Wanda. She's outside in the terrace, seated with her back towards him.
Moving to the coffee machine and the fridge to fix himself some breakfast, he can't help but keep glancing back at her. He sees a plate of croissants on the table, her phone flat on the surface as her index finger scrolls upwards. He doesn't want to bother her. She looks at peace sitting out there alone, comfortable and calm. He doesn't want to intrude on whatever she is doing on her phone. Even when he remembers that she had said she would take him to see Dante's statue. He had told her she didn't have to, and he meant it. He has no problem going to see it alone. He has no problem doing anything alone, and he has a feeling that she doesn't either.
He's surveying the fridge, trying to decide between making a simple sandwich or just eggs and croissants when he hears the slight squeak of the sliding door to the patio sliding open. He lifts his eyes just a little to the right to see Wanda coming back in. She's still wearing her pajamas, a loose tank top and shorts, her feet covered in fuzzy black socks and the rest of her body in what he thinks is a kimono. He snaps his gaze back to the fridge a second later, and not feeling that hungry anymore, ends his search.
"Good morning," she says as she places her empty plate in the sink and takes a sip from her mug.
He nods politely. "Mornin'. Where'd Steve and Nat go?"
"On a run."
He hums in response as he raises his own mug and drinks his coffee. He's glad to hear that little routine of theirs hasn't changed. He remembers when it was him and Steve that jogged in the mornings. Eventually Natasha joined them, and then after they got married, Bucky no longer went. He still jogged, but by himself. No matter how many times both of them asked him to join them, he always turned it down. It's not that he didn't want to be with them; he just didn't want to intrude.
Which is how he is feeling being here, even though they kept on repeating that he wasn't doing nothing of the kind. They wanted him there, wanted their best friend to spend time with them. But Bucky can't shake off the lingering thought that he is being a nuisance – not then and not now.
Wanda's soft voice reels him back in. "Did you want to go see the statue now?"
Bucky blinks, catching Wanda patiently waiting for a response. "Uh. Sure. We can go now. If you've got no plans right now," he adds.
She smiles and shakes her head. "I don't. I'll go change."
He watches as she gulps down the rest of whatever is in her mug, puts in the sink and walks past him to go upstairs. Bucky takes his coffee and a croissant and sits on the stool in the kitchen island. He sits there, swallowing and chewing, trying not to think at all. He doesn't want to think about the book that he will need to start on soon, doesn't want to think on how long he will stay in Florence although it'll be short because he refuses to trouble Steve and Nat, doesn't want to think about his damaged arm or even her.
He just needs to focus on something entirely else. Like the statue he's about to see. Dante. He likes Dante.
None of his peers had paid attention when his high school literature teacher had taught the class about Dante and his works, but Bucky had. It was then –and come to think of it, he was right around Wanda's age – when he was introduced to the Divine Comedy. His teacher had only assigned them to read the first part of the poem, which was Inferno, but he ended up reading all of it. It was a bit hard to understand due to the vernacular, but it didn't hinder him from enjoying it. He still doesn't really know why he enjoyed it – perhaps because Dante starts up in hell and ends up in heaven.
It's been years since he has re-read it, so hearing that Wanda has been reading it has reminded him of himself. Back when he was her age, just a kid whose only worries was getting good grades and trying not to be recurrently late to his job at the hardware store. It's a nice thought.
By the time he is done with his second cup of coffee and eaten two more croissants, Wanda has returned.
"Ready?" she asks, adjusting her crossbody leather purse.
He notices that she's wearing dark clothing again, even though it's sunny outside. Her long wavy hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, her lower lash lines rimmed in black kohl, her fingers decorated in rings and fingernails coated in black polish. The first word that comes to mind is goth, but that isn't the correct word, not on her. She's... something else. He can't pinpoint, not yet. They've only just met.
Steve was right. The church and the statue are just around the corner. From the side the Santa Croce church isn't much to look at, but then the entrance is a whole other story.
It's small compared to the big church with the orange-bricked dome he spotted when he arrived, but the size doesn't take away its wonderful architecture. The facade is constructed of limestone and various colors of biochrome marble: white, black, green, pink, with a six-pointed star at its pinnacle. There are three wooden doors, lines of people coming in and out of them. It's still early in the morning, and yet the entire piazza is filled with people.
To the left at the top of steps is the large marble statue of Dante, flanked by lions. There is also a Roman eagle behind Dante at his feet, looking up at him. Bucky takes out his phone and begins snapping a couple pictures of the statue and the basilica. Once he's done, he notices that Wanda has taken a seat on the steps. She's not looking at him, but ahead, at someone, at nothing. She's just sitting there, munching on some crackers she takes out from her purse.
He hesitates, not knowing if he should join her. But then he thinks that she has brought him here, so it would be rude to leave her alone.
"Did you know that Machiavelli, Galileo, and Michelangelo are buried here?" she says as he crouches to take a seat, her purse in between them.
His eyes narrow in curiosity, and he can't help but look over his shoulder and point a thumb at the church. "Really? In there?"
She glances at him and nods, smiling. "Yes. In there."
He hums in wonderment, a smile playing on his lips. "Wow." Then at the mention of Machiavelli, he arches a brow and asks, "Have you read The Prince?"
She returns his gaze and after a moment, there's a hint of a smirk. "I have."
Bucky shakes his head and chuckles, unable to believe it. He wants to think she's lying, but there would absolutely no reason for it.
"Why am I not surprised?" he says, more to himself than her. He's beginning to think he hasn't met anyone like her, this young and knowledgeable. Someone as impressionable as her.
"Well," she says after a while. "I have read some of it. Politics are interesting, but there was so much of it in his analysis, that I quickly got confused so I just gave up reading it."
He nods understandingly. "But do you agree with what he was tryin' to say?"
"No," she quickly answers. "He wrote that people in power should do whatever they need to do to keep that power, whether it's good or bad. I don't agree."
Bucky nods again. "Yeah. Me too."
After a couple still moments of them observing the square, the people, and light crunches of her chewing her crackers, Wanda is the first one to break the silence. "I hope you do not mind me asking me a question."
Bucky smirks, stealing a glance at her. "Depends on what it is."
"It is about your arm." She pauses, then asks even more quieter just for him to hear, "What happened?"
He inhales sharply, his body stiffens as his good mood dissipates with the wind. A string of flashbacks rattles his mind, taking him back to a time that he doesn't want to relive. To a period that has taken him years to come to terms with.
How foolishly naive he had been, how terrified out of his head he had been, how he had actually accepted he was going to die and then he didn't. All these deep, scary emotions he's buried, they slowly resurface. They're not as bad as they used to be, they don't overwhelm him anymore. But they do make him short of breath, make him fall a bit off balance.
The question itself, it doesn't bother him as it used to. Back then, he never wanted to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about how he had lost it, how in the process he had thought he was going to die. It just didn't do him any good harkening back on it. It made him sad, angry, pity himself. Thankfully for the therapy and the passage of years, the pain has lessened. It won't ever go away, it'll be with him till he breathes his last breath, but it won't control him either. He's at peace with losing his arm – he lost the basic motor functions, but it's still attached to his body. This is what he tells himself always.
He pushes back strands of his hair behind his ears and swallows. "I was 'round your age when 9/11 happened. I enlisted into the army when I was old enough. Me and Steve," he adds, feeling the ghost of a smile on his mouth as he remembers just how young they had been. "We were sent to Iraq. I was up in a tower on lookout for my battalion when we were attacked. A bomb went off. The tower came down, and I with it."
He doesn't mean to take a pause, but he does to let out a shaky breath through puffed cheeks. "I landed on my left arm and with all the rubble coming down on me, I crushed my brachial artery. Doctors were able to save my arm, but they'd said my nerve functions were too damaged. At first I told them to just amputate it if it was goin' to be limp forever, but they told me that I shouldn't lose hope. They were right," he admits with a rueful smirk.
He raises his left arm as far as he can before needing help from his right to rest his hand on his knee. "I can move my fingers," he says, wiggling them to show her. "And the lower part of my arm up until my elbow, I can move it a little. It took years but it's better than nothin'."
A couple minutes pass by, and that's when it dawns on him that he went into detail about what he's able to do with his left arm. Amazingly, he can't remember the last time he spoke about it. How far he's come in his therapy. Nobody's asked.
It strikes him odd to reveal this much information to Nat's little cousin. A practical stranger to him. He steals another glance at her, having his eyes set on the cobblestones, and catches her looking back at him. She's deep in thought, but he can't get a read on her.
She bites her bottom lip before asking, "Do you regret signing up?"
He shuffles uncomfortably, but he doesn't break their gaze. He locks his eyes on hers, even though he wants to look away because she's asked another question that he hasnt been asked in so long. "I... When I woke up in the hospital, when the doctors told me that I'd have a limp arm for the rest of my life... I did," he admits, his throat growing heavy. "I felt regret, and then I felt guilty for feeling regretful. But I don't – I don't feel that way. Not anymore."
"Even when you know now that the invasion was for nothing? Iraq was not behind those attacks, they'd never even have nuclear weapons."
Bucky winces and finally looks off into the distance. Now this is a subject he's still sensitive about. It makes his blood just boil at hearing this, because he knows it's true and it wrecks with his mind, with his heart. He knows they had invaded for no reason, though at the time he had been confused. But most of his fellow older comrades hadn't; they knew even then. He had heard the whispers that it was bad idea going to Iraq, and soon morale amongst them was so low that he found himself not wanting to go either.
"I... I was just followin' orders." He settles on saying, but he lacks conviction.
"That was not what I asked."
Bucky chuckles darkly. "You dunno what you're askin'."
"I do," she says, and he can feel her watching him closely, gauging his reaction. "So do you."
He exhales loudly, running his right hand through his hair. As he does, he smudges little beads of sweat on his forehead.
"Look. I'll never regret signing up to protect my country. I knew goin' into it that sacrifice was part of the risk, and I accepted it – willingly. And – and yeah I know Iraq was a strategic mistake. I know. But..." He stops, shaking his head as he feels a tremor run through him thinking of the days he spent inn the hospital recovering, the months and years that followed to recover not only his arm but his head. "I can't let myself think that I sacrificed for nothing. That I was lost my damn arm for nothing. I can't let – it'd be cruel to think so, and I don't think I deserve that. So instead I think myself lucky for surviving. Because I have friends who didn't survive. Who were killed right in front of me. And I'll be damned if I ever thought they died for nothing."
He doesn't know that his hand has balled into a tight fist, veins popping as the fuming anger runs through him, until he feels a small warm hand enclose around it.
He looks down to see it's Wanda's hand. And he nearly gasps when he meets her gaze, seeing those big green eyes filled with so much warmth and empathy. An openness that is so trusting. Her silent sincerity is something he never imagined he would need, but now that he has it, he doesn't want to forget this feeling. How it stirs something inside of him, to see that someone has heard him and cares for what he thinks.
There's a breeze that blows across his face, and in that moment his anger subsides. He no longer feels like he wants to rip his brain out, remove all those terrible memories from the war. They're gone, stashed away where they were, and instead he feels like he can breathe again. He unexpectedly feels better, like boulders have been lifted from his shoulders. It's a sensation that he cannot explain it, other than to attribute it to her. She's the reason why he can breathe again. She let him know that it is okay to be truthful every once in a while, and not be judged by it.
She squeezes his hand, half-smiling. "Thank you for your service."
"Thanks." He says, his voice barely audible. It's only for her to hear.
He holds her gaze for a beat longer, not sure why he doesn't look away. Instead, she does. She grabs her bag and gets up, walks down the few steps and turns back to him.
She extends a hand. "Natasha and Steve should be home by now."
Bucky's eyes wavers between her eyes and hand, once again taken aback by her kindness. He fights a smile as he puts his right hand in hers and stands up. Her touch is warm, just like he expected it to be. Once he's on his feet, he pulls to let go, but she grips him for just a second longer, before dropping it. His brows creases at her lingering touch, but then he thinks she probably did it by accident.
He paces slightly behind her on the way back to the house. He doesn't want her to see how stunned she left him. It perplexes him that someone so gentle and understanding as Wanda can be victimized by such a devastating mental disorder. She doesn't look like she has it, not one bit. But then he remembers that no one is what they make themselves appear, something he knows all too well.